Archive Result

112

20110917GRNYSE2

0:01

Welcome back to our afternoon session. If you are looking into the root verses it says that in order to have ourselves protected from fear, the Three Jewels are the ones. I would like to touch base about what these are. Everyone will say, “I know the Three Jewels.” Some people may say they are Buddhist. When you ask and more or less everyone will say, “Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.” But even among the Tibetans sometimes there are some who don’t know. There was a Tibetan gentleman who I won’t name, because many people know the family. They asked the grandfather who the Three Jewels are. He said, “Are you asking me who the Three Refuges are?” “yes”. He said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the Dab lab protector. That must be one. Who are the two others?” So that happens. But among the westerners, I am sure those who say they are Buddhist will know Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But when the second question comes you may have problems: who is Buddha, what is Dharma and what is Sangha? Then many will say that Buddha is that Indian prince who had come 2600 years ago. In a way that is true, nothing wrong. But it is just the historical Buddha. Here we are talking about the historical Buddha and me taking refuge to the Three Jewels. I am talking about my Buddha, my Dharma and my Sangha.

It is important to notice that. Buddha is not a big deal. The metaphor is a doctor. You go and see a doctor and the doctor diagnoses and gives us the medicine. But Dharma, the medicine, if is other than me it becomes a big problem. I am supposed to eat the medicine and undergo treatment to get better. If you point at something disconnected from you, then how is it going to affect you? That’s a big question. Therefore it is important to know that the historical Buddha represents the Buddha or any other spiritual heads or spiritual master, they all represent Buddha, like HH the Dalai Lama or for that matter, Guru Rinpoche, Tsongkhapa, Sakya Pandita and so on. They represent Buddha just like Buddha represents Buddha. But when you take refuge in the Mahayana style, you are talking about the result Buddha. That will be your own future Buddha.

The present historical Buddha represents Buddha, you take refuge in that. But what you are building is your own future Buddha. The ultimate achievement of your engagement in dharma practice – what you hope to get, what your goal is, what your purpose is – that is buddhahood. We always talk about “for the benefit of all sentient beings I would like to become a Buddha”. Some people say they “quickly, quickly” want to become Buddha. Some people may want to say “quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly”. Whatever the reason is, becoming Buddha is the goal. The prupose of your Mahayana spiritual practice is to become a Buddha. That Buddha is your own future Buddha. While you are taking refuge in Buddha, the historical Buddha represents Buddha, but you are building and connecting your own future Buddha, though it may not be there just now. But it is at the seed level. Maybe it is not active. Maybe it is not mature. Some people may call it “Baby Buddha” (laughs). There are some people who talk about “baby gurus” and “baby buddhas”.

0:10

Dharma also, on the one hand it is the path that becomes part of the 3rd and 4th path out of the 5 paths. The 3rd path is the path of seeing. The 4th path is the path of meditation. Dharma within the path of seeing and path of meditation is the dharma we talk about. It is the ultimate dharma. That ultimate dharma directly challenges your neuroses, like hatred, jealousy, obsession, stinginess and ignorance. These are 5. The 5 neuroses we have correspond to and are connected with our 5 skandhas or aggregates. They also link up with the 5 wisdoms and 5 buddhas. The central Buddha is Akshobya, the eastern is Vairochana, the western is Amithaba, the southern is Ratnasamhava and the northern is Amogasiddhi. These are all completely interlinked. This might not be appropriate to be mentioned at the refuge level, but the reason I am saying this is because the Buddha must be connected to our future Buddha. The dharma must be the real antidote of our negative emotions. The sangha is who supports these very particular activities.

Buddhism has a lot of relative and absolute categories and distinctions. Even the sangha has a relative and absolute sangha. The absolute is any man, woman or child who really has gained insight into wisdom. The relative sangha has to be a group of more than 4 full-fledged Buddhist monks or bikshus. That’s why some say, “I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in the Best Assembly.” Sangha means collection. It is a collected group. I believe it is Sanskrit or Pali. Pali may say sangham and buddham. But that is not the important point. The important point is to whom you take refuge. Certainly not to the image. A lot of people may think the image of Buddha is the Buddha. The image represents. If Buddha has to be a little piece of mud or ivory or gold that is a little too pathetic. He is beyond that. An image is even called “image”. That’s not Buddha, but only represents Buddha. It depicts what Buddha is supposed to look like.

The first Buddhist art was drawn in the Buddha’s life time. There was a king who was Buddha’s disciple and a sponsor of the whole sangha of Buddha. He and another king had an exchange of gifts. They came almost to the end of that, not knowing what to give to each other. They gave the best of the best, still convenient to carry. The kind where Buddha was staying, asked Buddha, “What should I send?” Buddha said, “Draw a picture of me and then I will give you a few words to write underneath.” Buddha sat near a pool and an artist came and drew Buddha’s image. At that occasion Buddha showed that one cannot measure his physical body. Some had magical powers to fly in the air and flew up in the air to see how high Buddha’s body was. But no matter how far up they went they couldn’t measure. That’s why the Praise to Buddha also says,

Ka tin wang pö ka la trö dön ne

Nam she rang du tri be don gyur chig……

The bird that keeps flying in the air with full power, no matter how much they fly, will after a little while get tired and must return. They don’t return because space is exhausted.

That’s what happened at that time. Finally they had to draw the physical looks of Buddha and after that Buddha dictated four verses for the Four Noble Truths to be written under that. That is supposed to be one of the best gifts that king had ever received. These stories are there and that is the beginning of Buddhist art. It started during the Buddha’s life time.

So the images are representing Buddha. That is the major point. Then when Buddha said, “Write these words underneath the picture” and explained the Four Noble Truths that is dharma. The relative Buddha and the relative sangha was given. And the relative sangha is supposed to be built. That is how the gift was given at that time.

0:21

The truth is that the relative Buddha image represents something – the historical Buddha as well as your own future Buddha – that’s what you hope to become and will become. There is the historical Buddha’s spiritual development as the representation of the dharma and your own dharma, which is overcoming your negative actions and thoughts and the positivities you have gained, the positive thoughts as change from the negative thoughts. When you have those that becomes true dharma. True sangha is the person who sees inside the truth, wisdom, who has insight into wisdom. That is true sangha, whether it is man, woman or whatever. The relative sangha is more than 4 full-fledged bikshus of the Buddhist order. These are the objects of refuge.

Then taking refuge is actually relying on the object of refuge. “I come to you. Can you help me?” So you say, “Yes, I help you, but you have to function this way and you can’t do that way.” It is the same thing when you go to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha for help. They will say, “Sure, but follow the rule of karma.” The direct words in the root text say,

DE CHIR KYAB DRO SHIN TU TEN PA DANG

DE YI LAB CHA NYAM PA ME PAR CHA

DE YANG KAR NAK LE DRE LEK SAM NE

LANG DOR TSUL ZHIN DRUB LA RAK LE SO

For this reason, your taking of refuge should be extremely solid

and you should follow its advice without ever letting (your commitments) weaken.

Moreover, (your success in) so doing depends on your considering thoroughly

which are the black or the white karmic actions together with their results,

and then living according to the guides of what is to be adopted or rejected

You should have very strong and stable refuge and follow the advice without breaking. The “Essence of Superfine Gold” translation says “Make your practice of refuge firm and let not the precepts of refuge weaken.” The precepts, as they call it are two. Actual it is advice. Okay, anyway, there are two advices; positive and negative. Positive are things to do and negatives are things not to do. We call that in Tibetan gag pei lab ja and dru pei lab ja. Gag pei lab ja is the advice what not to do, what is not permitted to do, what you should not do. The other one is what you should do and try to do. Simply for lay people like us what to do is the 10 virtues. What not to do is the 10 non-virtues. Virtues and non-virtues is the same as we talked this morning: the three through the body, four through the speech and three through the mind. It is no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, etc. Killing a human being is a big no. That doesn’t mean you can kill insects and other animals. They don’t become big, heavy negativities, but it is negative to kill insects or anything. Stealing is taking anything of value. It does not necessarily have to be monetary value. It can be sentimental value. That also count. If you steal anything value-less, it doesn’t become the big stealing, but it is stealing. Say you steal a broom or something. It is stealing, but it doesn’t have that big value. The result of stealing hurts the person from whom you steal. If it hurts that person, then even if the value is less than a penny you get the negativity of stealing. I better not go the other way around, then it is a different story.

Sexual misconduct is also a negativity. The traditional books will tell you not to do it at the wrong place at the wrong time, but true sexual misconduct includes any action that hurts people. Some people ask me that in the text books rape is not mentioned and isn’t that sexual misconduct? Sure, certainly it is. Definitely. It is one of the major sexual misconduct. So is child molesting. Some of the text books only talk about wrong place and wrong time. This is talking to particular persons who are not going to have those huge negativities at all, and for them this is mentioned. Besides that, most of the vinaya rules have come about through incidents that have taken place in Buddha’s life time. When something happened they asked Buddha and then in a gathering Buddha gave the answers. This is how many of the celibacy rules were established. That’s why those books count in that way. There was not even a danger of committing the major negativities by those people at that time. So these incidents did not take place. However, incidents took place where someone was involved with a cow. The question came that if that person had a cloth condom and if so, how thick it is and if it is wool or cotton. These things are very detailedly mentioned, because these incidents took place. But rape and child molesting are not mentioned, because nothing happened. No incidents took place and nobody asked Buddha that question. Somebody must have been busy with a cow. So that’s why in the vinaya rules there is detailed mentioning of whether it is front – or backwards with the cow. That’s all in there. Truly, that’s the reason. Other than that, sexual misconduct is sexual misconduct, whether that happens in the right place or not. It is the wrong thing happening to the wrong person anyway.

0:34

Then lying. Lying is not the used car dealer’s lie. They sell you a lemon car and tell you how good and cheap this car is, how low the gas mileage is. But it is a lemon and they won’t tell you that. It is a lie, but it is not a big lie. The big lie is if you don’t have certain spiritual developments, to pretend to have it. Pretending and expressing that you have it, either through words or writing or physical gestures, any expression, that becomes the big black lie. Then harsh words are harsh words. Jokingly saying harsh words may not be that bad, provided both persons know it is joking. But using harsh words to hurt the other people, even through joking, is considered using harsh words. Schism is schism, there is nothing to pretend. Some people may say, “I am telling you honestly”. Yes, you may be honestly saying something and that’s why you don’t have the negativity of lying, but you do have the negativity of creating a schism between a group of people. So you do get that downfall, even if you speak honestly.

Some people say, “Whether you like it or not, that is the truth.” But that is no excuse for negative action. Idle gossip is idle gossip. The example given in the teaching is engaging in those big, epic stories. The whole idea is to prevent the individual from using the time well. If you are a TV junkie, addicted to television, maybe then it is idle gossip. I think that’s what’s happening.

Then the three of mind: meanness is meanness. Wanting to hurt is wanting to hurt. You can hurt someone through very diplomatic ways or through very mean ways. But hurting is hurting. Then the mind of being [covetous]. The third one is known as wrong view, but truly it is holding the opposite position of reality or truth. That is for example saying, “The Three Jewels don’t exist, there are no Three Jewels.” Why is that considered wrong view? Because it is the opposite of the truth. Buddha is there. Dharma is there. Sangha is there. Saying that something is not there when it is there, is wrong. Likewise, the true nature of reality. This is questionable, because different people have a different view. But if you are among Buddha’s followers who accept dependent origination as reality, and you make them believe that dependent origination is not true, that there is solid, inherent existence, is wrong. If you present solid, inherent existence against the reality of dependent origination you are presenting the wrong theory or idea, misleading people. That is wrong view. Truly it is denying something that is there and making you believe that something that is not there is there. That’s twisting the facts. It may not be for your convenience. It may not work for your political, economic gain or popularity, but simply presenting the wrong facts and making the other people believe in that will become wrong view.

0:42

The scriptures give the example of presenting the fact of the Three Jewels, the Four Noble Truths in a twisted way. But it is not a religious reason. If you make someone believe that the tail – not the tusks – of the elephant are made of ivory that will be twisting the facts. If you make people believe that it is wrong view. Plus, if the elephant gets killed because of its tail, because the killer thinks it is ivory, you get the double negativity. By the time they cut off the tail and realize it is not ivory, it is too late. This is double jeopardy – like that game on television. That works with negativities too. So the wrong view does not really have religious connotations alone. The elephant’s tail is a little exaggerated example, but it goes like that. Also the rabbit’s horn is another example.

As the root text says:

Moreover, (your success in) so doing depends on your considering thoroughly

which are the black or the white karmic actions together with their results,

and then living according to the guides of what is to be adopted or rejected

Knowing about negativity and positivity very clearly, karma-wise, and avoiding the negativities and building the positivities will make the refuge not only perfect, but also make the spiritual practice perfect. This is the best way to ensure your future life. It is the first verse on that. Then the verse ends by saying:

I, the yogi, have practiced just that. If you would also seek Liberation,

please cultivate yourself in the same way.

So I, the yogi, practiced that way, and if you seek liberation, you should also follow.

The next verse says:

LAM CHOK DRUB LA TSEN NYI TSANG WAI TEN

MA NYE PAR DU SA CHÖ MI ONG WE

DE YI MA TSANG ME PEY GYU LA LAB

GO SUM DIG TUNG DRI ME BAK PA DI

LHAK PAR LE DRIB KYONG WA NE CHE WE

GYÜN DU TOB ZHI TSANG WAR TEN PA CHE

NAL JOR NGE KYANG NYAM LEN DE TAR GYI

THAR DÖ KYE KYANG DE ZHIN KYANG TSAL LO

The fullest strides (of progress) in actualizing the supreme paths

will not come about unless you have attained a working basis

(of an ideal human body) that is complete with (all eight ripened favorable) qualities.

Therefore you must train in the causal (virtuous actions) that will preclude

(your attainment of such a form) from being incomplete. (Furthermore)

as it is extremely essential to cleanse away the stains of black karmic debts

and downfalls (from broken vows) tarnishing the three gateways (of your body,

speech and mind), and especially (to remove) your karmic obstacles (which

would prevent such a rebirth), you should cherish continually devoting yourself

to (applying) the complete set of four opponent powers (which can purge you of

them). I, the yogi, have practiced just that. If you would also seek Liberation,

please cultivate yourself in the same way.

This particular verse tells you that by avoiding the 10 negativities, it automatically builds the 10 positivities. That will give you a good life, no doubt. But simply a good life alone is not enough in order to achieve the ultimate goal or your spiritual practice. You have to have a perfect life that has the 8 qualities. I am not going to go in that detail, but on top of avoiding the 10 negativities and building the 10 positivities, what else do you need to do on top of that? It is necessary to be non-violent. Absolutely necessary.

Avoiding the 10 negativities cuts out the stronger part of violence, but still it doesn’t qualify completely to be non-violence. One has to be non-violent. Generosity should not only be the generosity of dharma, but of materials, such as light, medicine, dress, etc. And it should be new dresses, not those ear-marked for the Salvation Army. Plus one should try to cut down the superiority/inferiority complex. Do not entertain that complex. The word in Tibetan might say “pride”, however, that pride is not the self esteem, but that complex, either superior or inferior. By cutting that down you gain respect to other people. Otherwise we do respect people in general as people, but then when it comes to the individuals and particularly those that are equivalent to you, even though we respect them, however, a lot of “buts” will come. Those “buts” have to be left out. Give respect to all of the people. Not only that, but do so with mindfulness. You will aware if you are not respecting them. You are aware of where you are seeing the faults.

You see the faults of people in two ways: one is because there is faults. Another is, although there are no faults we project and presume it and perceive it. But whether it is, we should avoid projecting faults in people. However, it is to the service then it is even good sometimes to mention faults. People may get hurt for the time being, but it could be helpful to that individual. If pointing them out is helpful, then that is very good. The faults are such things that if we don’t point them out and leave them there as etiquette, not wanting to hurt people, sometimes it is not that helpful. So you have to be mindful of that. Not only mindful, but also intelligent, where and when one should say it or not say it. That is important. When you can do that, actually you are conducting your life fairly well. However, we have a lot of negative emotions, a lot of instants and a lot of conditions. Particularly these days, everything, like the news and the events that are happening in the world, makes you mad and raises your negativity. It is because people are getting killed and hurt. At the same time we develop negativities too, because we are angry, because of huge dislike, because of frustration and all that.

Therefore it is important to purify. Purification is absolutely important, because it makes the negative karma not to become solid negative karma. It weakens. Sometimes we may even be able to purify it completely, but at least we can weaken it, so that it is not so solid and so strong as it was created. So you are challenging the negative karma. That is the opportunity for us to be able to reduce or even eradicate that.

1:00

Simply saying, “I purify”, “I apologize”, “I am sorry”, those words alone are not enough. We need thoughts and emotions and we need action, all together. So Buddha taught us to apply the four powers. The root text itself says

GYÜN DU TOB ZHI TSANG WAR TEN PA CHE – always apply the four opponent powers.

(Essence of Superfine Gold translation:)

Hence cherish the cultivation of the four opponent powers constantly.

If you simply say “sorry” that is not enough. Saying “I apologize” is not enough. You apply those four antidotes to those actions. What are they?

According to the tradition the first one is called “Power of Base”. The idea is that if I created a negativity, it was by hurting somebody. Who did I hurt? That person may be an enlightened one or non-enlightened one. So what do I do? I do something to make a difference to that person. I don’t know if the person is enlightened, but I can presume they are, so I take refuge. If it is a non-enlightened one I will compensate by meditating on compassion and love, by building compassion and love. Combined together, taking refuge and meditating compassion and love, then whoever you hurt is included. So that builds the base of where you have gone wrong. You are doing something to compensate. It the base on which we created the negativity. That’s why it is the power of base or the opponent power of base.

Next is regret. Regret is necessary. If you don’t have that, why do you have to even purify? If you don’t have regret you can’t do anything, because you enjoyed doing it or you don’t care what you did. Just to go to the other side you need strong regret, not just regret. The example given in the teachings is that of three friends who go out to eat together. Two got sick. One died, one is about to die. The other, the third one, had no problem. The third one will not be at ease at all. They will do everything in their power to undo what they have eaten. They will try to throw up, take laxatives, drink a lot of water to clean themselves out up and down, go to hospital and have them wash it out or whatever. In other words, you will leave no stone unturned. Particularly, you know that somebody already died and the second person is about to die. So you really have no peace. That much regret is recommended by Buddha. Then it becomes worthwhile as an antidote action.

If you have killed someone through anger you cannot bring that person back. If you said something horrible, you can apologize, but you cannot take it back, though in our culture you say, “I take that back.” The other person may refuse to accept, but after a while they may. Another expression is “I had to swallow my words” or “I had to eat crow.” You may do that, but you have to genuinely, sincerely, from the bottom of your heart, have that regret.

If you have that much regret, the third power of non-repetition, will be there. You don’t have to put in efforts. It will be there automatically. Then you are left with some antidote activities, which are opposite actions. If you killed, save a life. Although you cannot save who you already killed, but you can save other lives as an antidote action. Honor morality – forever, or at least for a limited time, like a year or two, or a month or a week or at day or even some hours. You need an antidote action, plus all other perfect Buddhist activities. They can be included.

When you apply those four powers to the committed negativities then there is a very good chance of being able to purify what was done. This should be done as a strong, repeated action. If I engage in them I have a better chance of purifying. We can purify, because it is impermanent. The nature of the action is also impermanent. It changes. By purifying you have provided the right conditions. With the right conditions and the right effort things can happen. That’s why we have a fairly good chance to purify anything we did wrong.

During Buddha’s life time there were even people who committed two or more of the five unlimited negativities and were able to purify them and become perfect. There was a person who was misguided by his spiritual teacher to kill 999 human beings. He also purified and became perfect. If that is so, a person like you and me, who didn’t even kill a single person, can also purify. We have been a little naughty and mean here and there, but we really didn’t do anything that bad. So why not? We have the opportunity and we have ways and means of handling that, even negative karma, so why not? That is true dharma activity.

It is important to uplift your journey to total enlightenment. That is probably maintaining our good life, the life that we have. We manage and maintain it in a good way. Then a good life brings a good death. If you have been mindful, alert and dedicated and wonderful your whole life, then your death will be influenced by that. You will have a better future life for sure. However, if you have to wait for your chances that is not recommendable. It is better that we deal with it by ourselves, at this moment, with this advantage that we have of the life we have. So what shall we do?

The next verse:

DUK DEN NYE MI SAM LA MA BE NA

THAR PA DÖN NYER JI ZHIN MI KYE ZHING

KÜN JUNG KOR WAI JUG RIM MA SAM NA

KOR WEY TSA WA TSE TSÜL MI SHE PAI

SI LE NGE JUNG KYO SHE TEN PA DANG

KOR WA GONG GI CHING PA SHE PA CHE

NAL JOR NGE KYANG NYAM LEN DE TAR GYI

THAR DÖ KYE KYANG DE ZHIN KYANG TSAL LO

If you do not make an effort to think about true sufferings and

their drawbacks, you will not properly develop a keen interest to

work for Liberation. If you do not consider the stages whereby

(true) origins of all suffering place and keep you in cyclic existence,

you will not know the means for cutting the root of this vicious circle.

Therefore you should cherish exuding total disgust and renunciation

of such existence, while knowing which factors bind you to its wheel.

I, the yogi, have practiced just that. If you would also seek Liberation,

please cultivate yourself in the same way.

If you don’t see the faults of suffering you will never develop the desire or interest for liberation. If you do not think about the cause of suffering you will not know how to free yourself. It is important to have a good renunciation of obsession, also knowing what makes you continue for your future lives in samsara. That’s how I, the yogi have practiced. You, who seek liberation, should also follow.

That is out of the three scopes, technically the second scope or “common with the medium scope”. We are now moving from the lower scope into the medium level.

1:18

Earlier, the goal of our practice was to cut down our negative emotions, our neuroses actually and avoid the creating of wrong doing and instead of that creating good karma. So we are honoring good and bad karma and that becomes a perfect human being who can be considered a perfection of worldly manner. That is the essence of “common with the lower scope.”

Now the medium level tells you: that is not enough. Unless we free ourselves from the whole samsara there is no guarantee that we will remain free. We will change. The whole game will repeat again. So again the same thing will happen. So it is better that you handle yourself and try to be free of all these samsaric games. Your target, the object of your spiritual practice, will be total liberation, not only negative neuroses, but the root of all that, the ignorance itself. So you are changing your target, your goal, your practice. The base, path and result are three things that you have to work together on any spiritual path. You have to on what basis you work, how and what you hope to gain. All these three work together. If one is missing your practice is imperfect. Who – that is almost the base, then what is what you do and what you hope to gain is also important. So in the second scope the goal is changing, the ways to get to that goal are changing. The target of eradication is changing. Knowing that is important. Otherwise, there is no goal, no target, no way of doing, simply being nice. We call that ‘love and light’. People say, “Everthing is wonderful, hey”. We have a saying in Tibet: “Everything is love and light. Even if the temple catches fire you are laughing and even if your food offerings are eaten by dogs you are still laughing.” That’s not that great. It is still better than getting upset and angry, but it is not that great.

I guess that’s about what I will do today. Oh, it is a bit earlier than I thought. I normally finish by 4.00 pm.

Audience: It is supposed to go till 5.00 pm

Rimpoche: No, that’s the advertising. I am sorry. Honestly, I tried to change that so many times. But somehow it doesn’t get there. I might have said it wrong. But the advertising should have been changed. I could sit here till 5 pm and do this verse too, but….I have two more weekends here, right and one in Ann Arbor? So okay, two more times. I hope to finish this teachings in two more days.

By the way, next year’s summer retreat will be on the bodhisattvacharyavatara with oral transmission and teaching transmission together. So it will be completed. I was happy that we could finish the Liberation in the Palm of your Hand. Everybody told me that was not going to finish it, but somehow it is finished. More or less it was oral transmission, and you people kept it up with the English translation and we did little explanations here and there. The bodhisattvacharyavatara is quite less than that, although it has 10 chapters. Also I have already given teachings before on that and you have transcripts available for all chapters except Ch 9, which I have not taught properly. That I am going to do next year. Then I haven’t got so many half left things. There is one more: Tsongkhapa’s lam rim chenmo – the lhak tong chenmo part.

I began to make an attempt here but I don’t think it is going to go that well. Maybe we can do it in Ann Arbor, I don’t know. There is nothing half left then. So I guess, that’s about it.

1:27 Audience: With regard to killing, I remember I once stepped on a mouse as a child and watched the mouse die. Also we often kill insects when we drive a car. How can we really apply the four powers when we are killing all the time? The promise of non-repetition can’t be kept.

Rimpoche: Very good question. I did say that you can make the promise of non-repetition by time, for a year, month, week, day or even an hour. You have to walk between not lying plus you have to have a strong commitment not to repeat. If you can, that’s great. If you can be vegetarian, it’s wonderful. Even if you can’t be vegetarian and have to eat flesh, try to eat as little as possible. You can also be vegetarian for a period of time. That is part of the Tibetan culture. You can take a nyung ne [fasting retreat]. One day you don’t eat at all, the next day you remain totally vegetarian and you keep that up for a week or month or however long you want to. If you have some kriya or charya tantra practice, then at least for that day you commit to being truly vegetarian. That sort of indicates and gives you the strong message that yes, you should be vegetarian, but if you really can’t, at least you should be vegetarian today. Is that good regret? No. Is that a very good non-repeatable commitment? No. However, it is better than nothing. That’s why we do that. I am not trying to justify being a meat eater, but the circumstances are such. I am not saying that meat is something you should eat. I am saying you shouldn’t, if you can avoid it.

Traditionally we would say it is okay to eat because it was not killed for you. But we are now in a market economy, which runs on demand and supply. When demand goes up the supply goes up and when the demand goes down the supply goes down. That is very clear. Therefore, you should not eat meat. What more violence is there than killing a living being? Even if we don’t directly carry a knife and cut the animal we are contributing towards it and it is wrong. But if you can’t help it the commitment of not eating meat for a month, week, day or even an hour is better than nothing. That’s all I am saying.

Besides that, our world is such that when you drive a car, under the wheels, how many insects die, especially if you are driving on a dirt road. With everything we do you have this. There are those Jain monks who wear face masks so as not to breathe in any insects. Buddha also told the Buddhist monks to keep a fan nearby to fan away the insects so they don’t fly into your mouth. Traditionally there were no fancy fans. So they kept animal tails for keeping the insects away. Buddha recommended using a piece of cotton cloth as a strainer to avoid insects from the water going into the cooking and eating. All that tells us to be vegetarian. I don’t know if that tells us to be vegan, maybe not.

Health-wise, vegan is even better than pure vegetarian. It depends on the individual system and physical condition. Some people are getting frustrated with me, telling me, “if you become vegan, you won’t be diabetic.” Maybe true, probably to 90% it is true. But I can’t. Probably I can give up meat now, because if there is too much of it coming I can’t take it anymore. But when it comes to cheese, that would be difficult. (laughs)

1:37Audience: I feel terribly haunted by my wrong actions killing mosquitoes during the summer and I cannot stop it. When they come to me they just bite me terribly, even if I spray something. I think it is my obsession during the summer and I wish I would not do this and don’t know what to think about it.

Rimpoche: This sort of thing where you cannot completely prevent it at all is reality. Mosquitoes, cockroaches, bed bugs. That’s what we have in New York, right? I used to live in Dehli and there was a tremendous amount of cockroaches where I lived. When you come down and turn the light on you see hundreds of them scurrying away everywhere in the kitchen. I learnt one thing: it is good to take preventive measures in December and January by spraying, because there are no cockroaches at that time in Dehli. If you spray once or twice a week in December and January, then in March and April no cockroaches come. So preventive measures are helpful.

But another question is: what do you spray and how. In India I used to get this DDT powder and put it down the drainage all the way through. Later I learnt that this was a prohibited substance in the United States already for many years. But for India it was used as a disinfectant. What to do about mosquitoes? I have no idea. If you trap them, you kill more. We had more mosquitoes this year in Michigan than any other year I remember, big ones, but they didn’t bring diseases. My answer is: I don’t know. I am sorry.

Again, we have the four powers we can apply, in daily, weekly and monthly and yearly purification. Particularly it is good to strongly purify the negativities we have committed knowingly or unknowingly every day. You can do that as a part of the daily practice. Even the short Jewel Heart prayer has the purification as part of the 7 limbed practice. So if you do that once and day and think about it is good. Just saying the words is not good enough. You have to think along with them as support. Then the words you say become good practice. If it is only the words it is not that great. It is good, but not that great. Words, thoughts and actions together becomes good purification. Simply saying, “I purify all my negativities” may not be enough. So think about the four powers, think about the wrong deeds we did and then give the commitment of not repeating that – if possible forever, but at least for a year or month, or day or even an hour. I don’t know if you can promise to keep it for the next minute, that would be too much. But for an hour you can promise. That’s how you live your life. That will be good. Thank you

1:45 Announcements

1:47 Thank you so much – Dedication – 1:49:49